POOL 62 by Designindia Magazine

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Anuj Prasad pg 28 | Photographed by Shruti Parikh Devika Krishnan 02 Made in India 10 Dinesh Nivalkar 16 Nupur Bhargava 22 Mihir Joglekar 42 Meghna Saraogi 48 Upamanyu Bhattacharya 54

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Editor in Chief | sudhir@indidesign.in

October 2015 | # 62

INDI Team outing in Goa POOL 62

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How to Be a Good Mentee To benefit from a good mentor you need to be a good mentee. I have been on both sides simultaneously and want to share what I think you should do to take the best from your mentor. In India we already know how to be a good shishya to a good guru. 1. Take the load: Be selfish and take the lead role in this relationship. You need to call, write, set meetings, make efforts and move your calendar to spend time with your mentor. Take full care that you make it easy for your mentor to spend time with you. It shouldn't be your mentor's responsibility to meet you at all.

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Anuj Prasad pg 28 | Photographed by Shruti Parikh Devika Krishnan 02 Made in India 10 Dinesh Nivalkar 16 Nupur Bhargava 22 Mihir Joglekar 42 Meghna Saraogi 48 Upamanyu Bhattacharya 54

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Designindia was founded in 2002. It was started as a platform for interaction for the design community in India and abroad. Over the years it has grown into a forum spread over many social and professional networking domains, linking design professionals into an active, interactive and thought leading community.

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2. Have more than one mentor: Let your mentor know that you have other mentors and do discuss cross advice; mentors learn from this too and will feel less burdened. It feels like responsibility shared. 3. Be serious about the advice: If a mentor advises you on a plan of action, follow it. Don't ask for advice if you are not going to follow it. If you disagree or cannot do something, discuss it with your mentor. Try to stick to every piece of advice. Mentors value this much more than anything else. 4. Look out for your mentor: It is but natural that you should follow what your mentor is working on and facing up to. Keep a look out for how you can help in any way. It could be finding interesting things for him to read, or some film that you think he should see, or news that you think is relevant. Maintain the connection. 5. Credit your mentor: It would be payback enough to acknowledge your mentor publicly and formally in the work you do. Mentors feel rewarded and will take care of you. I should now write about how to find a mentor...soon! Sudhir

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sustainable design

MY JUNGLE BOOK Devika Krishnan highlights the role of design in creating a sustainable business for a displaced population near Ranthambore, Rajasthan

At dawn on a foggy day in 1993 I got off the train at Sawai Madhopur, eager and excited about working with potters from Shyamota village near Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan. My excitement soon evaporated when I found there wasn’t a soul around barring a few cows near the exit. No phones either. Thus began my tryst with a project and its people that has shaped my design methodology, my approach to life. It was a short project I had signed up for with Dastkar, New Delhi and here I am, two decades later, as excited as then, about my next trip to Ranthambhore. A popular wildlife destination, Ranthambhore has 62 tigers as per the last census (2014), and Machli, the oldest surviving tigress in the wild, is its star attraction. Four hundred square kilometers of forest in Ranthambore was declared as a National Park in 1981. The conservation strategy included relocating villages from inside the core zone to areas outside. In the process, thousands of people lost their ancestral homes and livelihoods. Those who lived in villages skirting the forest couldn’t access it for firewood or for grazing cattle. Resources shrank while the population more than doubled. This could have led to a human tragedy. 2 POOL #62

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installation

MADE IN INDIA India certainly made its presence felt at Hannover Messe, the world’s most important industrial show

As official partner country at Hannover Messe 2015, India showcased its technological advancements, manufacturing capabilities and investment opportunities to the world. The India Pavilion displayed the limitless potential of India as a design, innovation, manufacturing and export hub. The Indian delegation at what is considered the world’s most important industrial show comprised of 400 companies, six ministries, 14 state governments, and 120 top Indian CEOs, and together they showed that India is an industrial force to reckon with. Exhibitions and interactive installations demonstrated the depth of what India has to offer as a manufacturing partner: 1.2 billion empowered citizens, a vast pool of resources, unstoppable entrepreneurial energy, and a highly investor-friendly business environment. The Indo-German Business Summit, seminars, presentations and cultural shows punctuated the five days of the event. 10 POOL #62

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artist

THE NATURE OF THE ARTIST Dinesh Nivalkar finds it more fulfilling to tread the solo path

Illustrations from the series 'Spirit of life': Spirit of Machchi-wali 16 POOL #62

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animation

QUIRKY STORYTELLING Nupur Bhargava of Invisible Rabbit, a boutique animation studio based in Mumbai, believes a good creative is like a carrot…juicy enough to sustain interest and healthy enough to pay the bills! What drew you to a career in animation? NB: My earliest memory of animation apart from the usual dose of Disney was from the puppet series on DD called Potli Baba Ki. I loved the organic world and great stories. When I Joined NID to study Animation Film Design, there was a French Animation Festival week with each day dedicated to a different genre from romance and comedy to horror. That’s when I truly realized the power of storytelling with animation and decided to become an animation film director.

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cover story

MANIA FOR DESIGN

While Industrial Design is what gets his adrenalin rushing, Anuj Prasad, CEO of Desmania Design Pvt. Ltd., has built up a multi-disciplinary outfit that is as respected by industry as his peers in the design world

One who takes initiatives takes the longest strides

Photo courtesy: Sandhya Raman

My early days were spent in Gorakhpur where I grew up in my ancestral house in a joint family set-up. With many close family members around, the learning was rich and diverse. Those days were bereft of gadgets so a large part of our routine comprised of studies and sports. I completed my schooling from Central School in 1981 after which I joined St. Stephen’s (Delhi

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illustrator

BEYOND BOUNDARIES Award winning Pune-based Illustrator/Art Director Mihir Joglekar believes in taking artistic risks! Can you remember some of your earliest art-related influences? MJ: I have been fascinated with art from as early as kindergarten. It was always evident that I’d take this up as a serious hobby if not as a profession. Being from a religious family, I grew up seeing different illustrations and paintings of gods and goddesses, each done in a unique style - be it the paintings of Hindu Gods by Raghuvir Mulgaonkar and S.M. Pandit, or the depictions of Jesus Christ in gouache by western artists. I observed them all. Making figurative drawings of mythological characters is what I dreamt of all day. That is what influenced me to start drawing. Mythology still remains my favorite subject. I don't get much time for personal work, or I would have materialized the many ideas that reside in me. Tell us a little about your professional background. MJ: I have a Government Diploma in Applied Art from Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya, Pune. I have been involved in numerous projects for films, television commercials

and print media, and done work through several well known agencies such as Lowe Lintas + Partners, Publicis , Madison BMB India, Makani Creatives, etc. for brands like Colgate, L&T Insurance, Nilkamal Mattresses, Garnier, Lifebuoy, and HyperCITY India. In 2014, I partnered with Michelin-starred chef Vikas Khanna as art director and illustrator for his first children's book The Magic Rolling Pin, published by Penguin India. I worked as a concept artist for the movie Harishchandrachi Factory, India's official entry to the Oscars for the year 2009. My work has been published in Ballistic Publishing's EXPOSÉ International Artbook volume 11 in 2013. I won Bronze at Goafest Creative Abby Awards in 2014 and 2015, and Best Art Direction and Best Creative Advertising awards at Ink Awards 2014. How do you go about designing a character? MJ: A character needs a good back story for it to evolve. For example, the brief of 'HyperCITY India - Love Meat' campaign required a husband or wife character, madly in love with their spouse, being a chicken, turkey, crab, pig or goat. I felt that this 'mad love' needed to be embedded in every attribute of the characters because all I had was just one frame to show their story. To show their craziness for each other I added similarities between the husband

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young blood

STYLE SAVIOR Find it impossible to make up your mind when shopping for clothes? Meghna Saraogi’s innovative app allows you to instantly get fashion advice from friends! What is Styledotme? MS: Styledotme is an open platform to get immediate fashion advice from buddies, fans, fashion bloggers and stylists all over the world. The Styledotme app allows you to instantly poll your friends and followers and get them to help you by voting for your options. If you need help to make a choice urgently, you can use the live timer to alert friends to your SOS situation; it will count down to remind them of your deadline. How did the idea come to you? MS: I have done my BFA in Applied Arts from College of Arts, New Delhi and Specialization in Visual communications from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. I worked with Designosis (formerly Sesh Design) for five years as a graphic designer and continue to work with them as an independent designer - in fact, Styledotme started while I was working with them.

I have always been a big shopaholic and love dressing up, but shopping alone or dressing for an occasion without being able to ask my friends what they thought of my outfit used to take all the fun out of it for me. I would be so confused about what really looks best on me that I’d end up asking strangers or salespeople what they thought, and in desperate cases would try and take pictures and send them to friends but this didn’t always work. Very often they responded too late, and I was left nervously taking decisions all by myself! This was the origin of the idea – I felt that if I face such a problem, surely there would be many others out there like me who’d feel the same? I wanted to build something that would make life simpler for people to connect with others to help them take the best fashion decisions for themselves. What are the key features of Styledotme? MS: Our USP is a live timer that reminds friends and followers of one’s deadline. Generally one will get to see posts when they open the app. If a friend needs urgent help you will receive the timer notification on your phone and you can provide timely help. The live timer running backward is also interesting because once

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Rising star

COLLECTIVELY COMIC Pre-production artist and animator Upamanyu Bhattacharya believes that when it comes to making good films, collaboration is the only way to go What drew you to animation? UB: I am from Kolkata, from a family of doctors who took very kindly to the idea of having an animator in the family. I grew up in the United Kingdom, which worked out really well because this allowed me very early exposure to theatrical animation in the premultiplex age, and also allowed me a lot of travel very early on in my life. I read a lot as a kid, and visited many museums and learnt a little about high art. We shifted back to India shortly after 9/11, and so I spent the second half of my life in Kolkata as a fish out of the water, having to learn Bengali almost from scratch so as to be able to perform academically. By now, the usual fascination with Disney had taken a permanent hold of me, and I could recite the screenplay of Bugs Life (with a passable Kevin Spacey impersonation thrown in). Of course, Tintin, Asterix, Calvin and Hobbes also played their part, and, inspired, I tried unsuccessfully to launch

a comic series about corruption during the FIFA World Cup in a universe entirely populated by anthropomorphic bears (this turned out to be strangely prophetic), and another graphic novel about a white blood cell. In 2007, I irreversibly entered the world of professional animation when I worked with Prosenjit Ganguly and Toonz Webel to make a stop motion short film about an OCD-inflicted bathroom clashing with the grimy boy who occupies it. The experience gave me my first ever glimpse at the life of a professional animator, and I quite liked what I saw. Later, I applied to NID (Ahmedabad) to study Animation Film Design, and my life began. How was the NID experience? UB: When I arrived at NID, I had only ever drawn informally and my style was rather rigid, and far from being suitable for animation. It took a lot of extensive drawing courses to get to a more acceptable level, and I was especially benefitted by a great figure study course while I was in Paris in 2014. I had to develop an original style and be known for it, so that took a lot of study, a lot of looking at the art made over

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SACRED ART: FROM TEMPLES TO HOMES India has a long and storied tradition of art, tracing its origins back to pre-historic settlements in the third millennium. Nearly every civilization that has since occupied the sub-continent for any span of time has left an indelible mark on its culture and artistic consciousness. So has every major religion that rose from its soil or arrived from elsewhere and stayed; Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Christianity have had a major influence on how the divine element was interpreted and portrayed in art.

A Traditional Pichwai

Over its own course of development, each religion furnished the artist with the iconographic models that over centuries crystallized into a unique argot of devotional iconography. One prominent example is the Pichwai paintings - in the Mughal miniature tradition